Courses

This course will combine documentaries and primary sources to build a comprehensive understanding of Canada’s history. Each week, we will be exploring primary sources guided by the online resource, “Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History” that teaches primary document analysis through specific questions in Canadian history. A couple of the mysteries we may be exploring are Where is Vinland? (with a focus on archaeological process/artifacts and mapping data) and What happened to Sir John Franklin’s last expedition in search of the Northwest Passage? (with a focus on Inuit Oral history). As this process will provide students with skills in analyzing primary sources and an in-depth look at particular aspects of Canadian history without providing the context of the sweep of Canadian history, they will also be required to watch a series of documentaries to develop a wider awareness of Canadian history as a whole. After watching each assigned episode, students will be required to either add key facts from the episode OR a fact from a field of personal interest from the same time period as the episode. For example, if there are eight students in the class, then once every 8 weeks, a student will be required to document the key facts from the episode on the timeline. Everyone else will have identified a field of interest: science, medicine, literature, inventions, world events, world politics, sports, etc. and will add one fact to the timeline from their field of interest corresponding to the time period of the episode.